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A slew of crowd control measures have been implemented at Delhi’s four major railway stations ahead of Holi, including creation of mini control rooms and holding areas, and installation of serpentine queue dividers, officials in the Northern Railways announced on Monday. These measures have been implemented at New Delhi, Old Delhi, Anand Vihar and Nizamuddin railway stations amid greater footfall days before the festival. This comes barely a month after the deadly February 16 stampede at the New Delhi Railway station in which 18 people were killed as passengers rushed to board Prayagraj-bound trains for the Mahakumbh.
Chief public relations officer of Northern Railways, Himanshu Shekhar Upadhyay said the measures have also been implemented at Ghaziabad and Panipat railway stations. Upadhyay said special duty officers have been deployed to monitor train and crowd control measures. “Ticket booking counters have been shifted in the holding areas to improve passenger experience.
Ticketless travellers will no longer be allowed inside these six stations,” Upadhyay said, adding that all RPF staff have been equipped with walkie-talkies for better coordination. Special teams are also ensuring that reserved ticket passengers are able to board trains smoothly, and that no unreserved or wait-listed passenger enters a coach. “For this, a special ticket checking squad has been deployed at both New Delhi and Anand Vihar stations,” Upadhyay added.
Other measures include deployment of adequate RPF personnel on footover bridges, special uniforms for commercial ticket checking staff, and ample mobile ticketing and automatic vending machines. On station-specific measures, Upadhyay said, “At the New Delhi railway station, platform 16 has been earmarked for running Holi special trains. Besides this, certain trains with high occupancy have been shifted to platform 16.
” “Reserved passengers bound for platform 16 are to enter from gate number 10 and unreserved passengers are to enter from gate number 12,” he added. On Sunday, a total of 14 Holi special trains were run at the station, the official said..
